KC Buzz Blog

Logan: Running against City Hall tough trick

   Smart guy Fred Logan points out that the decision by Becky Nace and Mark Funkhouser to run against City Hall is a risky proposition.

   "Kansas City historically doesn't elect anti-establishment mayors," he says in his latest commentary for KCTV5.

   Go here to check it out.

Posted by Steve Kraske

KC mayoral candidate profiles

   The Star is profiling the 12 mayoral candidates one at a time.

    Today: Jim Glover: Glover has a plan and it involves neighborhoods

    Previously:

• Stan Glazer: Glazer runs as 'visionary' with entrepreneurial spirit
• Mark Funkhouser: Ex-auditor says he'll make system work better
• John Fairfield: Assertiveness considered a key attribute
• Janice Ellis: Attention to basic services is a priority
• Chuck Eddy: Councilman emphasizes experience
• John David DiCapo: 'Give the small guy a chance'
• Alvin Brooks: A love for the city drives a life of service
• And here's Jeff Spivak's and Lynn Horsley's summary overview.

   Also, Horsley provides a summary look at the council races.

Hardball Funk? Larry King Funk?

   KC mayoral candidate Mark Funkhouser hopes to bring a little "Hardball" or "Larry King Live" TV to Kansas City, if he's elected.

   Funkhouser announced today that his administration will hold "town hall" meetings in different neighborhoods each week, plus broadcast a live call-in show each week from City Hall on the city government's Channel 2.

   This blog's readers can be creative sometimes, so run with it and think up some possible titles: "Meet the Funk"? "Funk Around Town"?

   Funkhouser says the meetings and the show are ways to improve city communications and openness with citizens. Here's his campaign's press release .

Posted by Jeffrey Spivak

Riederer presents positions

   In his first month of campaigning for mayor of Kansas City, Albert Riederer relied a lot on general ideas and statements -- he would provide "leadership," for instance. Now he is providing more specific solutions.

   Today, he released a set of positions on what he sees as the 5 most important issues facing Kansas City: its financial health, neighborhoods, public safety, education and diversity.

   The highlights:

• Look for ways to consolidate some services with other governments, such as building a regional jail.
• Establish a mayoral "Conference on Neighborhoods" before each budget season.
• Issue annual progress reports on certain neighborhood performance measures.
• Beef up "deferred maintenance" infrastructure spending to $80 million a year within four years. (Mayor Kay Barnes just proposed $54 million.)
• Have police crack down on "quality-of-life violations," such as speeding, loud parties, prostitution and panhandling.

   To see it all, go to Riederer's issues page on his Web site.

Posted by Jeffrey Spivak

Mayoral first impressions

   In election campaigns, first impressions are important. In the Kansas City mayor's race, with only a two month campaigning season, it's even more important. So let's take a minute to consider first impressions.

   Consider Thursday evening's forum at the Bruce Watkins Center, sponsored by the NAACP. For many in the audience, this might have been the first and only time they heard a mayoral candidate. And with such a large field of candidates, each must try to capture the audience's attention right from the start. So in this forum, each candidate was given 2 minutes to make that first impression.

   The best short presentations, to my ears: Henry Klein, Alvin Brooks, Janice Ellis and Katheryn Shields.

   Klein: He made gave an outline of 3 issues he was stressing: schools, crime and jobs. That's easily understood.

   Brooks: He gave his usual line that this time in Kansas City is "the best of times and the worst of times." Then he explained it -- the best is downtown's renaissance, the worst is the neglect in neighborhoods. Very pointed.

   Ellis: She got the most done in two minutes. She gave a short synopsis of her poor Southern childhood, shifted gears to a plan for the city, then focused on one issue she wants to change: education. Powerful.

   Shields: She presented her 3 priorities in a smoother way than Klein. They were: neighborhood basic services, property code enforcement and preventive street maintenance. She might have gone over the edge a bit with the line, "We need to be a city with no potholes." (That's hardly possible with our weather.) But you can't deny that she is a very smooth politician.

   Now for the rest.

   Becky Nace and Mark Funkhouser: They meandered a bit and didn't hone in on any memorable slogans or points. Nace came close with a line about wanting the city to get its "fiscal house in order," but then moved on to something else. Funkhouser, meanwhile, might be struggling with his presentation. At the first mayoral forums, he displayed more of a commanding presence. Now he's more soft spoken. Maybe that's by design, but it doesn't help him stand out of the crowd.

   Chuck Eddy made points about his experience and about how an improved downtown will improve the lives of all Kansas Citians. But his remarks didn't make the turn into "why you should vote for me."

   Several candidates were not at this forum: Albert Riederer, John Fairfield and John DiCapo. Jim Glover arrived after the opening statements.

   Then there's Stan Glazer. He likes to shoot from the hip. But at times his bullets can stray. On this night, in describing his background, he made this point: "I kept the Union Station from being torn down in 1971." Well, I happened to write the only book about Union Station's long history. It includes lots of verbiage about preservation efforts from the 1970s through the 1990s. Glazer isn't mentioned anywhere in the book. If I missed something in the boxes of documents I compiled and the dozens of interviews I conducted, I apologize.

Posted by Jeffrey Spivak 

Klein takes on earnings tax

   No doubt, one of Kansas City's most vexing growth issues is its 1 percent earnings tax on individuals working in the city and businesses in the city. Economic development types believe it stunts corporate relocations to KC, and Kansans sometimes quip it's the single reason why they wouldn't work in Missouri.

   Mayoral hopeful Henry Klein wants to do something about it. He proposes trying to gradually reduce part of the tax.

   "Ultimately, my goal is to eliminate the earnings tax altogether," Klein said in a statement.

   This marks a different stance for a KC mayoral candidate. In the race so far, candidates have steered clear of the issue, even though a Missouri think tank recently advocated eliminating the tax. This was brought up at one mayoral forum, but several candidates noted the earnings tax is the city government's largest source of revenue. Becky Nace has pushed for eliminating the tax for members of the military. But Albert Riederer summed up the stance of most candidates: "The e-tax is here, and it does work," he said.

   Klein wants to take the first step toward getting rid of the earnings tax by giving small businesses a break. He has studied the issue enough to know that both individuals and businesses pay the tax, with businesses generating a sliver of the total revenue. Klein wants to cut off the bottom 10 percent of that business tax revenue, amounting to an estimated $3 million.

   He believes that tax break will end up resulting in more job creation and business growth, which he maintains would generate more revenue for the city in other ways (a little supply-side economics), while also giving those businesses a little boost to stay afloat and contribute more earnings tax down the road.

   Klein says if he's elected, he will create a task force to further study the earnings tax.

Posted by Jeffrey Spivak

Race matters

   (UPDATE:  A poster asks how voters can learn about forums before they happen.

    On Mondays, The Star tries to publish a listing of expected forums for the week ahead.  Look for it.)

    Last night’s mayoral forum at UMKC focused on the thorny issue of housing segregation and racial disparity in Kansas City. Candidates were asked when in their lives they’ve actually reached out to other ethnic groups. Some candidates have immersed themselves in this issue, while others have mostly encountered diversity through volunteering or through their children’s educations. Their answers:
Alvin Brooks – He said he’s made it his life’s work to bring together different racial and religious groups, beginning after the riots in 1968 when he was appointed the city’s first Human Relations Director.
Charles Eddy – He’s served on the Don Bosco board, which helps refugees from around the world.
Janice Ellis – She grew up in segregated Mississippi and transformed her life through education. As past president of Partnership for Children she worked with the Kansas City School District, including reaching out to Hispanic and Somali parents. She says her website is the only one available in Spanish.
John Fairfield – He hired a Hispanic campaign manager, and his daughter has spent time with some public school classmates who live in Section 8 housing.
Jim Glover – He’s the only candidate who lives in the inner city. He chose to rebuild an abandoned house in the Troost Corridor and says the neighborhood is racially and economically diverse.
Henry Klein – He’s been an active volunteer with Habitat for Humanity and with Crosslines Adult Literacy Program.
Becky Nace – Her mother was Hispanic and she grew up in the Ivanhoe neighborhood. More recently, she participated in school events with her sons that brought together families representing cultures around the globe.
Albert  Riederer – He and his wife have volunteered at Holy Family Catholic Worker House and have attended community celebrations at St. James Church at 39th and Harrison.
Katheryn Shields – She advocated a diverse workforce as Jackson County Executive, and was active in launching her son’s language immersion public charter school, which has a diverse racial and socio-economic student population.
Candidates John DiCapo, Mark Funkhouser and Stan Glazer were no shows.

Posted by Lynn Horsley   

KC Pride endorses Brooks

   The Kansas City Pride Democratic Club, representing gay and lesbian members, has announced its endorsements in Kansas City's mayor and council races:

   Mayor -- Alvin Brooks.

   4th District At-large -- Deth Im and Beth Gottstein.

   4th District in-district -- Ezekiel Amador and Jan Marcason.

   5th District At-large -- Cindy Baker Circo.

   6th District At-large -- Cathy Jolly.

   The dual endorsements in the 4th District races "show how far Kansas City politicians have come in their support for the LGBT community," the club said in a statement.

   One interesting note: Pride handled their endorsements a little differently than the other large club in the LGBT community, the Four Freedoms organization. While Four Freedoms' endorsements were tinged with controversy, with some of its voting board members involved in political campaigns, Pride's endorsements were based on votes from its large membership.

Posted by Jeffrey Spivak

Shields asks for separate, speedy trial

   Mayoral candidate Katheryn Shields filed motions in federal court this afternoon asking for a quick, pre-election trial and complete, public disclosure of all the evidence against her before trial.

   Shields, who is facing federal mortgage fraud charges with her husband, asked that the trial begin either Monday or “the earliest possible trial date.” Shields has pleaded not guilty and has said she would like the trial concluded before the Kansas City’s mayoral primary, Feb. 27.

Posted by Mark Morris

Driving Mr. Glover

   KC mayoral hopeful Jim Glover today pledged to make a personal sacrifice in the name of the environment, if he's elected.

   He would give up the mayor's traditional Lincoln Town Car, and instead drive around town in a Ford gas-electric hybrid car.

   "That's all the style I need," Glover said during a luncheon speech to a local Sertoma Club at Union Station. "I don't need a Lincoln Town Car."

   Glover says he drives a Ford Escort now.

   Tuesday's speech was billed as a big opportunity for Glover to "lay out his positions on the environment and light rail." But while a 4-page speech was prepared for him, Glover didn't follow it, and ended up only touching on only a couple of the policy positions in the prepared speech.

   For instance, the prepared remarks about light rail included a line that he expected the city to deviate from Clay Chastain's voter-approved plan, and that any new plan would go to voters, too. However, he did not mention any of this in the actual speech.

   Glover is known to free-form his speeches. But this one was so specific in its points, it begs the question: Should a candidate still be held accountable for printed statements not actually spoken?

Posted by Jeffrey Spivak